French test for Goodall (From Basingstoke Gazette)

French test for Goodall

8:49am Monday 22nd June 2009

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BASINGSTOKE tennis ace Josh Goodall will get his Wimbledon challenge under way against Frenchman Michael Llodra later today.

The 23-year-old British number three, who has never been beyond the first round at SW19 in four attempts, will take on Llodra, a former world number 34, in the fourth match on the new number two court.

It will be the first time that the two men have met but Llodra, who is 29, will be a strong favourite. He has a world ranking of 144 and has won three ATP tournaments throughout his career, one of which came on grass at a tournament in Holland in 2004.

He took world number 25 Mardy Fish to three sets at Queens this year but has a poor record at Wimbledon, never getting further that the second round.

Goodall, whose coach is former British number one Jeremy Bates, is ranked 201 in the world and has never been higher than 187. However, he has shown some decent form during the grass court season, reaching the semi-finals at a Challenger event in Nottingham and recording his first win on the ATP Tour in Eastbourne last week before losing to Croatian Ivan Ljubicic in the second round.

Goodall received a wildcard for the tournament and his first round match against Llodra will take place on the number two court, which is new to Wimbledon this year and has a capacity of 4,000.

In the doubles, Goodall and partner James Auckland will face number nine seeds Wesley Moodie of South Africa and Dick Norman of Belgium in the first round.

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